Hank Monbay along with his wife and son, Pryce, and friends from Pennsylvania chartered the Topshotfishing team with Captain Budalick and mate, Dave, to do some deep sea big game sport fishing in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Winds were out of the east at 15 mph, seas running 4-5 ft., temperatures in the low 80’s.

The anglers wanted to catch a Sailfish today so we stopped to get a dozen live Goggle Eyes from T&T Bait to do some live bait kite fishing later on in the trip.

Fifteen minutes after leaving the dock, lines were in 120 ft. of water off the sea buoy in Fort Lauderdale, 1.8 miles from shore. We started out trolling with two #8 plainers down and for surface baits we went with two Ballyhoos and two Bonito strips. We trolled the reefs and caught two short Kingfish, which we released. A color change was forming in 160 ft. of water off of the sea buoy in Fort Lauderdale. We put out two kites with two live Goggle Eyes from each kite waiting for the black shadow to appear. Dave, our mate, yelled out – “right short Sailfish!!” – the Sailfish lunged at the bait and came out of the water, tail-walking away. Pryce was our angler and he reeled in his priced Sailfish measuring out to 85 inches. Pictures were taken and the Sailfish was released. An hour went by and another black shadow made an appearance on the left long – hooked up Sailfish!!! Twenty minutes later Hank brought the Sailfish to the boat for picture taking and was released to fight again. We reset the kites – a Mahi Mahi came swimming through the pattern but did not feed – Dave, our mate, casted a live Pilchard to the Mahi Mahi; as the fish turned on the bait, he got foul hooked. The fight was on and forty minutes later, the Mahi Mahi was in the boat.

All the anglers relaxed in the a/c salon for the trip back to the dock at Bahia Mar 801 Seabreeze Blvd. Fort Lauderdale 33316.